It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

Perspectives

Do me a favor & check over my maths please, we’ll come back to this, so remember your 1st impression.

This is a post about many things, arguably everything, but I guess I will make a feeble attempt to relate it to topics this blog has covered in the past.

A couple of days ago I attended a seminar on men’s health put on by the organisation I work for. It was a couple of fun filled hours touching on many aspects of men’s health, including the topic of depression which I am all too familiar with, but it was more like visiting a comedy club for a couple of hours.

One of the exercises he threw at us was the math above.

What did you see when you looked at those sums?

Let me put this another way.

Loving family

Reasonable marks at school/University

The odd sporting achievement

A group of solid friends

A good job with good performance reviews

I’m a loser

What did you see when you looked at these points?

Or another way.

Good group of guildies – some of whom I call friends.

Ability to choose any character, class and faction of my choice

Server uptime of 96.5% (on a maintenance week, otherwise 99.99%)

Many options of playstyles, activities and rewards

A new expansion every 18 months, new content every few months.

Paladins are overpowered.

WoW sucks doesn’t it?

Of course that would depend on how you read each of those lists.

5 out of 6 doesn’t make a right

When you looked at my math, what was it you noticed, what stuck with you?

Was it that the last sum was wrong?

or

Was it that the first five were correct?

I’m software tester by trade, I find my perspective often gets twisted so I am looking for the 6th calculation. I am looking to find fault in the work of others, when in reality, my job is to confirm the correctness of their work.

Oh sure, I wouldn’t want to let the 6th calculation into production, but then neither does the developer. The developer is relying on me to prove that the code works under normal conditions, not that it fails, because you know a developer takes and error or bug as a mortal wound.

I realised that when I tested the software given to me, I all too rarely report on the excellent quality work delivered to me.

I realised that when the developer sees me approaching, their heart sinks and the prepare for the bad news.

Even when it is bad news, I rarely present it in the fashion of…

Your code passed 5 out of the 6 test steps in this early stage of testing and with a quick fix, we will be 6/6 or 100% good to go!

No, I approach the developer with my hand crafted NEW BUILD! sign in my hand.

Of course life is good, from your perspective!

What about when you looked through my “life story” summary?

I’m going to guess, unless you relate to the complete table, that you crossed out the last point automatically.

Just for the record, that list is similar to the one that saved my life some 14 years back. I did an exercise from the book I’m Ok, you’re Ok by Thomas Harris, where you list out your successes to get some perspective, something that is desperately missing when you are suffering from depression.It not only gave me perspective, it allowed me to realize that something was wrong, something that could be treated.

If you aren’t one that ignored the first five points, it can be hard to appreciate that someone can invalidate those 5 positive points with one (quite likely) baseless point.

If you honed in on point 6, give your family doctor a call, or utilize the many resources out there these days that will help you see the first 5 points. (U.S.A., U.K., Australia)

If you know someone that ignores the first 5 points and lives by the sixth, talk with them… NO, listen to them without providing solutions, without interruptions, without your view of the first five points.

Then encourage them to seek help, better yet, make the 1st appointment for them, with them.

WoW sucks!

What about my last example?

I know it’s hard, but f you play a Pally, you need to image that 6 is a bad thing.. it is a bad think kk?

Is your WoW filled with amazement that so much can be provided for so many for so long?

Or is it WoW filled with bugs, class imbalance and downtime?

If its the 1st, then that may explain why you play WoW, your perspective is good, keep enjoying the game!

If its the 2nd, then WoW may not be the game for you, but then there may be no game for you.

Just remember that many other people can put that bad 6th point in perspective and enjoy the game for all that is good in the game.

As it is in WoW, it is in life.

Try to get perspective.

When the things in WoW, or life are getting you down, draw up a list of all those things that shit you to tears, then draw up a list of all those things in the situation that bring you joy.

If the bad still outweighs the good, then something needs to change, you need to change. Life is meant to be a long list of good, not a long list of bad.

Is it really worth expending all that energy bitching about the bad, dragging down yourself and your loved ones to meet your level of despair, when a little perspective could turn your day, your life, around?

All that time spent around the water cooler, colluding with your peers about all that is wrong, when the “all that is wrong” is just a small percentage of all that is right. Often the things that are wrong can be swept away with perspective, and if not, the right perspective will allow you to tackle them head on, so those molehills are no longer mountains.

Sometimes, just sometimes, all it really takes is to understand that it isn’t all about you.

Just kidding – I actually wish I had one where I work now (I was encouraging my boss along those lines a while back – particularly when I had a friend who was a QA guy looking for work).

My previous job I was in charge of the development team… and we had QA people (not just software we worked with special hardware too) and after realising the developers weren’t reacting well to the testers talking to them I started that all going through me (largely this was a personality conflict though… our QA lady was… overly blunt?)

Still I picked up that #6 was wrong in the maths side. I wonder if my wife the teacher would pick up on it differently? I would have said it was the default reaction – to pick out the negative there where there is a definitive answer. To turn that into a positive and encouraging response though does take thought and a conscious effort and I imagine is more so where yourself is concerned.

Pffft… typical developer… yeah it’s cool to go into Prod.. 83.33% of it works.. what’s the chance that someone will want to use the other 16.66%;-)

It’s interesting what different people see.

A guildy saw the error in the maths… but wanted to know why… Why is it wrong, is it a pattern, what is the puzzle.

Me.. I’d just look, see the error and report 100% failure.

I remember when I was doing primary teacher training, they taught us to “ignore” multiple errors, just highlighting 1 or 2 in any piece of work. The kid will be disappointed enough with one error… don’t want them to know there is only one correct piece on the paper or they will be traumatized for life.

People usually laughs when I tell them that one of my strongest role model is Pollyanna, but I am being completely serious.

I always, ALWAYS try to find the good side of anything that happens, ever since I read “Pollyanna” when I was 8, and it never fails to help, at least a little, even during the darkest time of my life (for the record: I suffered from depression too, albeit for a relatively brief period).

We naturally tend to focus on the Bad, but life can be so much better if we can look at the Good too, and recognize it for what it is.
Life is so brief, why spending it in depsair? :)